To paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s famous comments on obscenity, the concept of “device” is not easy to define, but we know a device when we see one. They capture our imagination like little else. We become compulsively attached. The best devices satisfy basic needs that are difficult for us to describe and, therefore, have a magical ability to conjure money. They become talismans of economic vitality, as the devices in this gallery demonstrate. Although “device” predates the invention of electronics, we are sticking to devices that in one way or another use electricity, according to the 21st century sense of the word. We also decided that, for this list, a device was something a person had to be able to hold and use more or less with one hand, which ruled out laptops, for example. We chose devices that leaned toward the “gizmo” side of the continuum. The devices we chose were not only popular. Not only did they make their inventors or manufacturers a lot of money. These tiny devices ripped open the earth, pushing tectonic plates east and west to build new mountains of economic activity. They demonstrate the profound capacity of the simplest bits of metal, glass and plastic to transmute the basic elements of work and commerce into new sources of gold.
Above: Motorola DynaTAC
You could be forgiven for not following the investment advice of Zack Morris of Saved by the bell. But his notoriously incessant barking into his Motorola DynaTAC-style cell phone put Zack at the forefront of a fundamental change in the way human beings interact, a change that spawned a trillion-dollar industry. The DynaTAC went on sale in 1984 after the FCC approved the 2.5-pound device as the world’s first consumer cell phone. At a cost of nearly $4,000 for the phone alone, Zack’s DynaTAC characterized him as the privileged, preppy rich kid. But its ugly brick turned out to be merely the first domino in a technological cascade that has spread around the world at astonishing speed. Just 20 years after Zack, a new World Bank study finds that 75 percent of the world’s population has access to mobile phones, including much of the developing world.
Photo: Mikek/Flickr
Above: Motorola DynaTAC
You could be forgiven for not following the investment advice of Zack Morris of Saved by the bell. But his notoriously incessant barking into his Motorola DynaTAC-style cell phone put Zack at the forefront of a fundamental change in the way human beings interact, a change that spawned a trillion-dollar industry. The DynaTAC went on sale in 1984 after the FCC approved the 2.5-pound device as the world’s first consumer cell phone. At a cost of nearly $4,000 for the phone alone, Zack’s DynaTAC characterized him as the privileged, preppy rich kid. But its ugly brick turned out to be merely the first domino in a technological cascade that has spread around the world at astonishing speed. Just 20 years after Zack, a new World Bank study finds that 75 percent of the world’s population has access to mobile phones, including much of the developing world.
Photo: Mikek/Flickr
